Cultivating learning habits ultimately involves:

• Providing rich and varied occasions for exercising learning habits;
• Infusing learning habits into lessons to enhance content understanding;
• Recognising and celebrating the use and growth of learning habits;
• Expecting students to take ownership of and responsibility for their own learning habits;
• Exploring the development of learning habits with students over time.

As a teacher you are an influential character builder and so need to be mindful of how you help students form, replace, re-form and strengthen their learning habits.

But don’t worry, you’re not there yet. It takes most teachers between 2 and 3 years to become really fluent with this way of teaching. So, go easy on yourself. Feel determined because small steps often prove to be big levers for change. Have a think about what you might do…

What to stop and start

Here are a few ideas you might want to try. Take it steady, this way of teaching can be a big  but exciting shift so its worth doing it slowly and thoughtfully.

Look first at the Stop/avoid ideas. Some of these are far from trivial but it’s best to try to remove them before starting on the Start/do more of, Start slowly and Experiment with ideas.

Cultivating learning habits ultimately involves:

• Providing rich and varied occasions for exercising learning habits
• Infusing learning habits into lessons to enhance content understanding
• Recognising and celebrating the use and growth of learning habits
• Expecting students to take ownership of and responsibility for their own learning habits
• Exploring the development of learning habits with students over time

As a teacher you are an influential character builder and so need to be mindful of how you help students form, replace, re-form and strengthen their learning habits.

But don’t worry, you’re not there yet. It takes most teachers between 2 and 3 years to become really fluent with this way of teaching. So, go easy on yourself. Feel determined because small steps often prove to be big levers for change. Have a think about what you might do…

What to stop and start

Here are a few ideas you might want to try. Take it steady, this way of teaching can be a big but exciting shift so it’s worth doing it slowly and thoughtfully.

Look first at the Stop/avoid ideas. Some of these are far from trivial but it’s best to try to remove them before starting on the Start/do more of, Start slowly and Experiment with ideas.

Module 2 is written for all staff. It offers an overview of why better learners are needed, what better learners are like and the learning behaviours that characterise better learners.

Strategic concerns.

What is the overall purpose of the suite of 13 Nutshell Phase 2 modules?

Once a school has established a commitment to developing students’ learning habits, there is a pressing need to maintain momentum and generate further ideas and enthusiasm.

These resources answer that need.

The on-line material is designed to enable lead teachers to run training/coaching sessions with school teams that will give teachers practical hands-on experience and a wealth of ideas that they can put rapidly in place in their classrooms.

There are eleven learning behaviour modules in the suite. Each module covers progression in one of the essential learning behaviours that have been identified by research as having greatest impact on learning outcomes:

Collaboration; Questioning; Making Links; Planning; Listening; Noticing; Revising; Reasoning; Imagining; Resourcing learning (Capitalising); Me-Learning ( Meta learning).

Each module has 4 sections:

1. How the learning behaviour develops over time. Progression Chart. Unpick the meaning of the behaviour, how it develops over time and use the progression chart to plot where your students are now.
2. Taking the learning behaviour into classroom culture. Classroom activities. Offers numerous suggestions to develop a Learning friendly culture and build students’ Learning skills.
3. Blending Learning with content. Dual focused lesson. Suggests a series of questions and steps you might use to ensure the development of Learning claims its place in the curriculum and is designed into lesson/activities to aid understanding. 
4. Team reflection and planning.  Share the impact of your experiments with colleagues and plan what you need to do next.

And the resource materials in the Learning Diary help you to distil important messages, home in on the key bits of information and design learning experiments specifically for you.

Important Note: Unlike Nutshells 1, there is no expectation that all teachers will tackle all modules. Teachers should expect to look at those that are most relevant to either their own subject, or to identified whole-school issues. Even so, expect any module to take at least half a term, probably more.

Additionally there are two other modules:

• this one relating to how the other 12 might best be used by team leaders;
• and ‘Reviewing our Progress‘ that should be used as the last module to review progress to date and to consider ways forward.

However senior / team leaders should take a quick look at this module now, as some of the suggested review strategies might benefit from conducting an evaluation of the current situation at this point so that the subsequent review can track shifts in teacher and learner behaviours.

[Naturally these two additional modules have a unique format, unlike the consistent  approach in the 11 learning behaviour modules described above] 

Using these materials across all school teams will;

• Develop team understanding of learning habits and behaviours and, importantly, how they should develop over time
• Establish team enthusiasm for refreshing student motivation and learning capacity
• Build expertise through guided sessions that stimulate teachers to use the materials and generate their own ideas.
• Secure a common language for learning across the school

How do we decide where to start in using the Nutshell Phase 2 modules?

Unlike Nutshells 1 where the order for sequencing the modules was tightly defined, Nutshells 2 has no pre-determined sequencing. 

Schools can either:

i) Let (curriculum) teams first play to their strengths.

Invite teams to consider the question,

• which three or four of the learning habits are most readily exercised through their subject?

In other words teams think about which habits fit easily with the disciplines of their curriculum area/subject content and indeed teaching styles.

Mapping different subjects to learning habits will show that each exercise a different blend of habits.

Many teachers believe that through their subject disciplines the learning habits grow naturally, although they will probably be unaware of whether and how learning habits are developing. John Hattie’s research shows that learning habits need specific interventions if they are to grow and strengthen.

This approach of mapping habits to curriculum areas offers a smooth, non-threatening and pragmatic approach to introducing learning power.

Teams first explore the learning habits they think their subject naturally uses before later being supported to experiment with less familiar learning habits as their confidence grows.

Advantage: teams start with behaviours that most readily fit in their subject. Disadvantage: teams are working on different modules concurrently.

or:

ii) Select a range of critical learning habits for the whole school to tackle together

Here the school selects those learning habits that need explicit whole school attention because they are critical to the success of a large number of curriculum areas, For example, Questioning, Listening . . . . 

Or maybe the choice is to work on a module(s) perceived to be an area of known learner weakness.

This approach means that all teams experiment with the same range of learning behaviours, moving on to other behaviours as their confidence grows. Disadvantage: teams are delayed from focusing on modules that relate most closely to their subject area.

You know your school well. Which strategy will work best for you?

Managing team coaching sessions

What are we expecting work on the Nutshell phase 2 modules will achieve for staff and students?

Coaching Nutshell modules should help all teachers to;

• Become enthusiastic leaders of their students learning
• Be committed to approaches that are relevant, worthwhile and manageable
• Develop more and more creative ideas of their own
• Share with each other the rapid impact this shift in perspective has on their students’ learning
• Enjoy their teaching even more

Teachers working differently should have the following outcomes for students. They;

• Find classroom activities engaging and interesting
• Secure a greater understanding of content and make progress
• Understand how using learning behaviours helps them to learn better
• Work towards becoming leaders of their own learning
• Become less dependent on their teachers to provide them with answers and solutions

How might we pace the content? What coaching climate will be most effective?

i) Suggested pacing of content

In preparation of a team meeting.

Make teams aware of which module is being studied. Give teams access to the on-line module in advance of the team session. Invite them to read it through to get the feel of it – they will anyway. They should focus particularly on section 1, focusing on the activity  relating to the progression grid. Team members should arrive at the meeting having downloaded the progression grid and estimated where their students are on the grid. This is essential pre-reading before the team meeting.

Team meeting

Aim to discuss any outstanding issues from the previous module (if appropriate).

The bulk of the meeting is given over to:

• Agreeing where the majority of students lie on the progression grid;
• Exploring the suggested teaching activities, routines and teacher talk that can support students at that level;
• Planning and committing to undertaking a learning enquiry stimulated by the online materials.

It may well be necessary to have a second team meeting to evaluate progress, to identify enquiries that are having a significant impact, to share good practice, and to maintain momentum 

ii) Building an effective development climate

Changing the habits of a professional lifetime is not simple. It involves un-learning and re-learning: unpicking, readjusting, trying things out and seeing what works. It’s about staff using their own learning power to affect changes in themselves. And the desired change is not just in what they think and believe; it is in how they spontaneously talk and act and plan. Even small shifts in the type of language a teacher uses take time to implement fluently. They have to stop using previous language, start using new language, hesitantly at first, then in different contexts, more frequently and with greater fluency.

Think Teacher Learning Community

Think of these meetings as a Teacher Learning Community the essence of which is a small group of teachers who meet together regularly to deepen their understanding of an approach, trying out new things and reflecting on and sharing their experiments with each other.

iii) A team session is usually arranged like this…

Introduction to agree aims for the meeting, and quickly offload irritations or frustrations about work that otherwise could hinder the progress of the meeting.

Sharing how things are going Each member gives a summary of what he or she has tried to achieve since the last meeting. Everyone is expected to report back to every meeting. The group question and probe their colleagues’ summaries to encourage analysis and deeper reflection. They use questions such as ‘What do you think is getting in the way? What would make this even better? How could this technique be modified to make it work for you? What do you think made that work so well?’

New learning The middle section of the meeting is where ideas form the Nutshell modules are introduced discussed and decided on. This changing middle section keeps the meetings fresh, but importantly aims to progress the breadth and depth of the approach.

Personal action planning Each member then plans what they intend to try over the next, say, month. This gives teachers time to think and plan in the session itself. 

Review of the meeting

Finally the group reflect on the original objectives of the meeting to see if they have been achieved.

This tight format makes the purpose of the exercise clear and everyone knows what is expected of them.

Meetings such as these have been a prominent feature in many learning powered schools and have helped teachers to share both successes and tricky problems in an atmosphere of trust and commitment.

Operating ground rules. 

But apart from the structure it’s a good idea to have some ground rules for such meetings. It’s important in keeping groups both comfortable and purposeful.

Try these ground rules for size and amend at your first meeting to suit your team’s way of working.

Pre-session organisation

All team members to:

• look through the Nutshell materials before a session
• bring their previous session’s Personal Action Plan to the meeting
• prepare a two-minute input about their lesson experiments to share with the group

In-session climate

• Everyone fully engaged in the group
• No group member can ‘pass’
• Active listening when not your turn
• Actively discuss everyone’s input
• What is said is confidential to the group
• Constructive criticism – developmental not judgemental
• No put-downs
• Open-mindedness
• Respect others’ views and encourage others’ ideas

Post-session activity:

• Everyone to undertake their small-scale learning enquiry with a view to feeding back at the next session;
• Everyone to undertake the required reading for the next session;
• It’s a good idea to review these ground rules occasionally to make sure the team is working well for all its members.

Making learning power work involves transforming the traditional culture of the classroom. A common language for learning is adopted; staff shift responsibility for learning to pupils and model learning by sharing their own difficulties, frustrations and triumphs; students come to understand themselves as growing learners and consciously improve their learning habits; teachers assume the role of learning-power coach, offering students interesting, real and challenging activities to enable them to create their own knowledge and stretch their learning habits.

This online module introduces you to a constellation of learning behaviours. Research confirms them to be the high value psychological characteristics that make up a successful lifelong learner.

Take a look at yourself and your students through the lens of these learning behaviours and think about why it  might be important to develop them into learning habits.

Building Reflectiveness

Being ready, willing and able to become more strategic about learning. Reflectiveness: The strategic aspects of learning (Managing).

Planning

Working learning out in advance

Revising

Monitoring and adapting along the way

Distilling

Drawing out the lessons from experience

Meta-learning

Understanding learning, and yourself as a learner

Connecting

The Face in the Mirror

Stretching

The London Game

Transferring

Reflectiveness for Martians

Reciprocity

Being ready, willing and able to learn alone and with others. The social aspects of learning (Relating)

Interdependence

Balancing self-reliance and sociability

Collaboration

The skills of learning with others

Empathy and Listening

Getting inside others’ minds

Imitation

Picking up others’ habits and values

Connecting

Making Omelettes

Stretching

Stranded

Transferring

Reciprocity for Martians

Building Resourcefulness

Being ready, willing and able to learn in different ways. The cognitive aspects of learning (Thinking).

Questioning

Getting below the surface; being curious

Making Links

Seeking coherence, relevance and meaning

Imagining

Using the mind’s eye as a learning theatre

Reasoning

Thinking rigorously and methodically

Capitalising

Making good use of resources

Connecting

Questions for Answers

Stretching

Whose Wallet?

Transferring

Questions for Answers

Building Resilience: 

Being ready, willing and able to lock on to learning. The emotional aspects of learning (Feeling). 

Absorption

Flow; the pleasure of being rapt in learning

Managing Distractions

Recognising and reducing interruptions

Noticing

Really sensing what’s out there

Perseverance

Stickability; tolerating the feelings of learning

Connecting

Piggies in a Field

Stretching

Heath Robinson Challenge

Transferring

Resilience for Martians

The construction of the Bank offers you tremendous flexibility

For example you could:

• string the topics and approaches together to form a whole programme
  – e.g. year 7 PSHE
• use warm-up activities in tutor time
• infuse stretching activities into the curriculum
• and so on

Things to think about

• Which of the themes and topics do you want or need to use?
• What order of the themes and topics seems appropriate?
• Would it be useful to mix topics from different themes?
• Which of the approaches will work best, for each topic?
• Do some topics lend themselves to all or some of the approaches?
• Which activities are too difficult or too easy for your students?
• How could you adapt or replace them?

How about …

• Learning mentors using the Transferring activities
• Year 7 using Connecting activities in their induction programme or tutor time
• Using any of the activities to structure an assembly
• Using some Stretching activities to introduce teaching for learning power to staff
• Using the ‘Me-now’ activities (see Transferring) in learning reviews

Connecting activities include some or all of the following:

• Learning Challenges (LC) – instructions for students
• Observation Sheets (OBS) – for use with the activity
• Linking Ideas (LI) – a range of activities to deepen understanding

Stretching activities include:

• Learning Challenges (LC) – instructions for students
• Resources (RES) – for use with the activity
• DIY Resources (DIY) – templates which require printing and cutting
• Observation Sheets (OBS) – for use with the activity
• Rating wheels (RW) – for use after the activity

Transferring activities include:

• Reflective Activities (TRN) – for use with groups of students
• Learning Logs (LL) – for use by individual students

All the resources can be displayed on the interactive whiteboard or printed for students’ use.

The great majority of the activities are accompanied by selected resources and can be used without further delay. Those activities with DIY resources require you to make resources. This usually involves printing the DIY resources onto card and cutting them up.

Using the activities

There are five main content themes, each divided into several topics.

Theme 1 About Learning

Learning is an important part of all aspects of our everyday lives, and not something that simply happens through school. We have a set of ‘learning muscles’ that we use to help us learn successfully, and these muscles need exercising to keep them toned and strong.

1a Learning and life (topic)

Exploring what learning means, how it is experienced and how learning and life are inseparable.

1b How we learn (topic)

Exploring the big picture of learning power, introducing the four dispositions of resilience, resourcefulness, reciprocity, and reflectiveness. 

Theme 2 Resilience

Being ready, willing and able to lock on to learning.

• Absorption:
  • flow; the pleasure of being rapt in learning
• Managing Distractions:
  • recognising and reducing interruptions
• Noticing:
  • really sensing what’s out there
• Perseverance:
  • stickability; tolerating the feelings of learning

2a About Resilience

Exploring what resilience in learning means, how it is experienced and its importance in learning.

2b Absorption

Exploring being absorbed, what absorption feels like and why it’s important in learning.

2c Managing distractions

Exploring the notion of distraction in learning, how we might manage distractions and why this is important in learning.

2d Noticing

Exploring the capacity of attentive noticing, how we use it in learning and why it is important in learning.

2e Perseverance

Exploring what we mean by persevering in learning, its association with feelings and how persevering helps learning.

Theme 3 Resourcefulness

Being ready, wiling and able to learn in different ways.

• Questioning:
  • getting below the surface; being curious
• Making Links:
  • seeking coherence, relevance and meaning
• Imagining:
  • using the mind’s eye as a learning theatre
• Reasoning:
  • thinking rigorously and methodically

3a About Resourcefulness

Considering the big picture of being a resourceful learner.

3b Questioning

Exploring the value of questioning in learning.

3c Making links

Examining how and why making links is central to how we understanding things.

3d Imagining

Exploring the use and power of imagination as a learning habit.

3e Reasoning

Exploring the nature and value of thinking logically as an aspect of learning.

3f Capitalising

Examining the nature and usefulness of using all sorts of resources as a habit of learning.

Theme 4 Reciprocity

Being ready, willing and able to learn alone and with others.

• Interdependence:
  • balancing self-reliance and sociability
• Collaboration:
  • the skills of learning with others
• Empathy and Listening:
  • getting inside others’ minds
• Imitation:
  • picking up others’ habits and values

4a About Reciprocity

Considering the big picture of being a reciprocal learner.

4b Interdependence

Exploring the meaning and use of interdependence in learning.

4c Collaboration

Exploring the meaning and skills involved in collaborating with others in learning.

4d Listening

Examining the skills involved in real listening and its importance in learning with and from others.

4e Empathy

Exploring the meaning of empathy and the need for empathetic behaviour in learning.

4f Imitation

Exploring the meaning of imitation, and how and when we use imitation as a useful learning habit.

Theme 5 Reflectiveness

Being ready, willing and able to become more strategic about learning.

• Planning:
  • working learning out in advance
• Revising:
  • monitoring and adapting along the way
• Distilling:
  • drawing out the lessons from experience
• Meta-learning:
  • understanding learning, and yourself as a learner

5a About Reflectiveness

Considering the big picture of being a reflective learner.

5b Planning

Exploring the nature and role of planning as a
useful habit in managing our learning.

5c Revising

Exploring the nature and role of flexibility in learning
and the importance of monitoring our own learning.

5d Distilling

Examining the nature of distilling and how this
helps us to improve how we do things.

5e Meta learning

Exploring the meaning and
value of understanding ourselves as learners

These skills, attitudes and values, when used with increasing competence and confidence across a wide range of learning opportunities, amount to a successful learning character. Building Learning Power is fundamentally about establishing, nurturing and stretching the learning characters of students. The approaches and activities in the Activity Bank aim to introduce students to the habits of a learning character, and involve them in understanding and growing their own learning character.

This Advance Organiser is a little different. The materials show you how an ‘infused’ lesson is designed but here we go a little deeper and include specific aspects of collaboration. The resulting lesson is one that you can use or adapt to develop or assess pupils’ collaborative behaviours.

It is an essential preparation for the Professional Learning Team session in the same course

1. A reminder about dual-focused or split-screen lesson design

1b. Putting the ‘turn-around thinking’ into practice.

Jumping to the heart of the lesson

Let’s just by-pass lesson starters and recalling previous learning for now, and jump to the heart of the lesson.

• What has to be achieved or understood by pupils – objectives
• By doing what? – task
• Using which learning capacities? This is the NEW bit

You already do all the rest!

But it’s this ‘using which learning capacities?’ that will cause you to think differently about the lesson planning.

You ask – as always – what are the anticipated objectives?

The verbs in your resulting objectives will give you clues about the types of activities that will achieve the objectives and the sorts of learning behaviours your pupils will need to contribute to this learning endeavour.

You are designing the task in a way that relies on pupils to contribute their learning ‘powers’; muscles, behaviours, call them what you will.

1c. Working the lesson design through

The lesson schema.

Oops! This might look different to your standard lesson planning format. Don’t worry, no need for you to use this format, we are using it to help you see clearly what’s happening.

We’ll build it up bit by bit

1. Lesson title or sub title for this part of the lesson
2. Stimulus on the whiteboard or in reality. This might be a driving questions, a hook, a resource, the objectives, and so on.
3. What you, the teacher, will be doing at this point.
4. What the pupils will be doing at this point.
5. The learning behaviour you are going to ‘call up’ or activate in pupils to help them reach the learning objectives. The new bit.
6. How you will be talking – the language you will be using to nudge learning behaviours along. Another new bit.
7. Time –how long this part of the lesson should take.

So, as you can see there are only two new components to think about. (5 and 6) and they are linked together: the learning behaviour being used and how you will talk about it to encourage and nudge its use.

2. Let’s start the Collaboration lesson proper

In this section we are going to work through planning a lesson that aims to deal with surviving in a desert. To do this we have selected a ranking order type task which will be achieved by  pupils using their collaborative behaviours. You could use, or adapt, this lesson with your class to develop collaboration. Alternatively you could use it to monitor pupils’ progress in collaborative skills. Its function here is to show how a dual focus lesson is made up/planned.

The lesson has been structured to bring out various aspects of collaboration.

Objectives

3. Putting the activity into the whole lesson

Here’s the full lesson story

1. Big Picture – where the lesson fits into a wider SoW – a holistic context
2. What the lesson will achieve (objectives, outcomes, success criteria and the like)
3. How you will connect pupils to previous learning on this topic
4. The hook – how you will initially engage/interest/make them curious about the subject matter
5. The activity at the heart of the lesson – where the blending of what and how happens
6. Reflecting on the process
7. Reinforcing/transferring through a linked home learning

Look carefully at the seven steps

This advance organiser is a bit different. Here we introduce you to an interesting way to encourage pupils to formulate questions and then show you how this question formation technique can be infused into lessons

This lesson is an essential preparation for the final Professional Team session in this Year 1 programme.

Writing